Five poems by Adam Day

Doing Nothing

The sun has gone

underground, but

the authorities

will find it.

To Be Here

Yellow leaf

thinly slow-flies

shallow serpentine

creek beneath

tree canopy

and frog call

of water running

over a gourd’s mouth.

Bring the Wind

Driving spikes

to split boulders

the sparks

fly pink

in the winter

blue light.

Stoplight Rain

Propane tanks

tossed in the yard,

neighbor went inside

dressed and came

out naked, the whole

horse of him

with nowhere

to put his wallet.

What do you need,

love, what kind

of enough

would be enough?

Long Minutes

Shad swim

the forest,

fold into

manta rays

maneuvering paper

birches and

elms; something

like eternity

embedded in

a moment

of time.

Adam Day is the author of Left-Handed Wolf (LSU Press, 2020), and of Model of a City in Civil War (Sarabande Books), and the recipient of a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship for Badger, Apocrypha, and of a PEN America Literary Award. He is the publisher of the cultural magazine, Action, Spectacle.